Wind energy cuts Taiwan CO2 emissions
by 250,000 tons a year

Apr 22, 2007 - BBC Monitoring

The number of wind turbines along
Taiwan's west coast now surpasses 100, and the renewable
energy generated by these units is sufficient to
prevent the emission of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide
a year, energy officials said Sunday.

At a ceremony held in the Changhua
Coastal Industrial Park to promote the use of wind
power, officials from the Bureau of Energy under
the Ministry of Economic Affairs said the 103 giant
wind turbines located in 13 wind farms along Taiwan's
west coast can generate 420 million kilowatt-hours
of electricity a year - enough to power 105,000
households.

The windmills were established by
Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), the private-run Tien-Lung
Paper Co. and InfraVest Wind Power Group, a German
company which entered the market in 2000 as the
first wind farm builder in Taiwan.

According to the officials, more windmills
are under construction in west coastal areas and
the outlying island group of Penghu, with an additional
total capacity of 500 megawatts. Each unit will
cost at least NT$100 million. They said Taiwan's
coastal areas are ideal for the development of wind
power because they have six months of strong northwest
winds each year, with an average wind speed of five
to six meters per second.

The Bureau of Energy has set the target
of generating enough renewable energy to meet 10
per cent of Taiwan's electricity needs by 2010,
with wind power making up 80 per cent of the renewable
energy.

Taipower, the sole electricity supplier
in Taiwan, began to harness wind energy in 2002
and plans to establish 200 wind turbines in Taiwan
and Penghu by 2010. Taipower's long-term wind power
development plant will build an additional 546 wind
turbines between 2010 and 2020 in shallow waters
off Taiwan's west coast and Penghu, with a total
capacity of 1,980 megawatts at an estimated cost
of NT$200 million each. Out of the 546 windmills,
176 will be built off Penghu, and the electricity
generated by these units will be transmitted to
Taiwan through a 40-km undersea cable. The other
370 units will be established 10 to 15 km off the
coast of Changhua and Yunlin counties, according
to Taipower.